Containers



April 11, 1961 M. B. HAILES 2,979,220

CONTAINERS Filed Feb. 8, 1957 AM A Tran/vent United States Patent2,979,220 CONTAINERS Myles Basil Hailes, Milan, Italy, assign'or toUnilever Limited, Port Sunlight, England, a company of Great BritainFiled Feb. 8, 19 57, Ser. No. 639,016 Claims priority, application ItalyFeb. 15 1956- 2 Claims. (Cl. 215-100) This invention relates tocontainers such as, for example, bottles bearing labels.

It is an object of the present invention to provide an improvedcombination of a container and a device adapted to serve as a label.

According to the present invention there is provided a combinationcomprising a receptacle, a sleeve fitting over and surrounding an openended portion of said receptacle and a closure member engaging with saidopen end; at least a crosssectional dimension of said closure member andof a further portion of said receptacle being respectively greater thanthe corresponding dimensions of the ends of said sleeve to which saidclosure member and said further portion are adjacent, so that saidsleeve may be retained in position by said closure member and saidfurther portion.

According to a preferred embodiment of the invention the receptacle isof substantially circular cross-section and tapers uniformly towards itsopen end. Preferably the tapering surface of the receptacle isnon-developable in one plane. According to a further feature of theinvention the sleeve is of substantially frusto conical shape.

One embodiment of the present invention will now be described by way ofexample with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 shows a container with a closure member;

Figure 2 shows a sleeve adapted to serve as a label;

Figure 3 shows the sleeve disposed in position on the container.

Referring to the drawings the container comprises a glass bottle 1 whichtapers towards its open end, the tapering surface or neck portion of thebottle 1 being non-developable in one plane. The bottle 1 is providedwith a substantially conically shaped screw cap 2 which engages the openend of the bottle 1. A frusto conical paper sleeve 3 is fitted on to theneck portion of the bottle 1 so as to surround it, the diameters of theends of the sleeve 3 being such that when the sleeve 3 is fitted on tothe bottle '1 and the cap 2 is screwed into position, the sleeve 3 isretained in position on the bottle 1 by the mutual co-operation With thecap 2 and that portion of the bottle 1 on which the adjacent sleeve edgerests. The sleeve can be readily used to bear descriptive orillustrative matter. It will be appreciated that the use of frustoconical sleeves greatly facilitates their stacking prior to assembly onthe bottles.

It will be apparent that the present invention provides a ready and easyway of attaching labels to coin tainers. A particular advantage of thepresent invention is in connection with the labelling of relativelysmall containers, ditliculties having hitherto arisen in attachinglabels to containers whose available surface area was not large comparedwith the surface area of the label. Furthermore, the present inventionsubstantially avoids the difiiculties which arise in sticking labels tosurfaces which are not developa-ble in one plane.

I claim:

l. A label-bearing container comprising a receptacle having an opening,a closure member detachably engaging the receptacle to close theopening, and a sleeve-like label of inverted frusto conical shapesurrounding a portion of the receptacle, said label having a smaller endabutting part of the receptacle and a larger end abutting the closuremember and retained-thereby on said receptacle whereby on removal of theclosure member the label is free to be lifted oh" the receptacle.

2. A label-bearing container comprising a receptacle of substantiallycircular cross-section having a neck portion, said neck portion havingan opening and being tapered towards the opening, a closure memberdetachably engaging the neck portion to close the opening, and asleeve-like label of inverted frusto-conical shape, said labelsurrounding the neck portion and being retained in a position byengagement of the smaller end of the label with a part of the neckportion and engagement of the larger end of the label with the closuremember so that when the closure member is removed the label is free tobe lifted 01f the receptacle.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS FranceOct. 4, 1950

